Teachers’ willingness to renegotiate their contract early has saved the district nearly $300,000, according to Hopkinton school officials, who cited rising health insurance costs as the impetus to renegotiate with almost two years left on the original agreement.
According to Hopkinton superintendent Steve Chamberlin, the school board invited the teachers to renegotiate at the end of November because health insurance was slated to increase by 23.6 percent, or more than $600,000, if changes were not made. The board ratified the new agreement on Jan. 4 after about 3 weeks of negotiations, Chamberlin said.
If approved, he said, the new contract would result in $274,861 of savings in health insurance and salary benefits for the district and would last for three years.
Hopkinton Education Association President Scott Zipke noted the renegotiation means more stability for teachers, who won’t have to think about a contract for the next three years if approved. He said the membership’s response to reopening the contract was “overwhelmingly positive.”
“I think the general feeling was that if you’re going to use more services, you have to pay a little more in this consumer-driven economy,” he said.
“It’s a win-win situation, I think, that we were able to help the town fill in the hole caused by the increase, and not have to negotiate for the next three years,” he added.
Rob Nadeau, social studies teacher at Hopkinton Middle High School and lead negotiator for the contract, said the HEA was under no legal obligation to renegotiate. But Nadeau said he felt members recognized that the increase in nondiscretionary spending meant that money would come from somewhere else.
“With that kind of increase, it’s possible things like programs we can offer and classes kids can take,” he said. “No one wants to see the schools not deliver what we’re used to seeing them deliver. That’s a big concern for us.”
The biggest change in the negotiations is the moving of the base health insurance plan to a “site of service” plan, which includes a deductible. The district currently pays 92 percent of their employees’ insurance premiums, and teachers pay a $5 co-pay when they go to a doctor, Nadeau said. Under the new plan, the district will pay 100 percent of the insurance premiums, meaning no money will come out of a teachers’ paychecks for their health care, he added.
The district will also pay up to 50 percent of the deductibles, which ranges from $1,000 for a single payer to $3,000 for a family plan. Any amount over that would be borne by the employee, Nadeau said. And if teachers want to stay on the current plan, they’ll have to pay the premium difference, which Chamberlin said would be around $8,000.
Although the new plan would mean employees would have to be more careful when choosing which services to use, Nadeau said the agreement was a good deal for both sides. The plan also includes a health reimbursement arrangement, where any deductible money not spent returns to the school district. He was also impressed by the speed of negotiations, noting that agreeing on a contract can take six to eight months.
“People can get things done when they want to get things done,” he said. “This is a great deal for the town, for teachers, and for kids.”
Nadeau also said the shift toward a “site of service” plan is becoming more common, noting that Concord is moving to a similar model for its school district. He said it was likely a similar shift would have been negotiated next year when the current contract was due for negotiations.
Another major change is the scheduled salary percent increases. The current contract would have included a 2.5 percent increase for teachers during the 2017-18 year; in the new contract, teachers would see a 2 percent increase each year, including next year, for the duration of the contract. For the last two years of the current contract, Hopkinton teachers got 2.5 percent salary increases; in the first year, they received at 2.9 percent increase.
Other notable changes in the contract includes increasing the professional development funds for each teacher from $300 to $400, a number that Chamberlin believed had not changed in the last 18 years. He said that cost was viewed as investing in their teachers’ development.
Hopkinton school board chair Matt Cairns noted the new contract may save programming as well as money. While specific reductions were not discussed, Cairns said it was possible some teaching positions would no longer be able to be full-time if teachers had been unwilling to negotiate.
“The teachers really sacrificed for the town,” he said. “They were able to protect themselves while still putting the taxpayers first.”
The budget committee will be holding a Q&A session on the school board budget at 5:30 p.m. tonight at the town hall.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@comonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.)